The Ministry of Dick Van Dyke's Accent

The Ministry is Primarily Dedicated to Documenting Current Complaints in the British and World Press Regarding Mr Dick Van Dyke's Poor Attempt at a Cockney Accent in the Motion Picture Mary Poppins Half a Century Ago.

Friday, May 27, 2016

Nina Wadia
I played Bert the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins when I was 11: the brush was taller than I was, I had braces, short rolled up trousers. The “chim chim-in-ey” song? That was my big number. I went to an expat school in Hong Kong and I was the only Indian girl in the class. So there I was, with this very strong Indian accent, trying to copy Dick Van Dyke cockney.

In a somewhat poetic case of getting their own back after being lampooned by the comedian’s latest character, the beer-swilling hooligan Nobby, he’s been dubbed 'the new Dick Van Dyke’, akin to the star’s cod-Cockney twang in 'Mary Poppins’.

If you've got a really strong regional accent, or something like Dick Van Dyke's legendary cockney accent from Mary Poppins then you might get the occasional "Sorry, I didn't catch that." As it happens, I am a genuine cockernee myself, and it was only OK Google that understood my exaggerated "Cor blimey, guvnor!" when I tried a Dick Van Dyke impression as a test.

Colour, humour, character, joy. All things that have been sorely missing from the FPS genre of late. Instead of a nameless infantry grunt, you play as one of 21 heroes - all unique, all capable of radically changing the outcome of a firefight. There's McCree the gun-slinging cowboy who can pick off enemies with his magnum. Or pick Tracer, who can rewind time and sounds like Dick Van Dyke’s cockney accent on helium.